Passive-Aggressive Post-it Notes

With a Side of Statistics!

So I just had my first grad school class (which went really well, but more on that in a moment), and what do I come home to?  A cheerful hello and a “How was your first day?”  Of course not!  I come home to a big sticky note stuck on my bedroom door demanding the rent money.  An empty house and a bill.  How welcoming.

Now, I know that compared to other people, especially those who are fellow poor graduate students, I’m doing well when it comes to living quarters.  I live with my brother and sister-in-law in central Connecticut and only pay $300/month on rent.  I have my own bedroom, and plenty of privacy and alone time during the day.  It’s not the money itself that bothers me, it’s the way it was demanded.

For as long as I can remember I have hated the post-it note as a form of communication for anything other than telling someone about a missed call or a quick grocery list.  The passive-aggressive, wheedling quality of it just seeps under my skin and irritates in ways that few other things do these days.  I was immediately angry when I saw it.  My response was to wad it up and throw it on the floor in front of my door.  Door closed behind me, of course.  Let them see that and maybe they’ll get a hint of how I feel about it.

I had even made plans to go to the bank and get money for them (granted only for this month, and not the last one I missed, but still).  Just that silent act of landlord-y superiority bothers me so much!  I just feel so unwelcome here.  My sister-in-law I feel has nothing but resentment for the space that I take up in her apartment.  She only talks to me when I directly say something to her.  I feel so uncomfortable sitting in the room with them that I usually get up and go to my room almost as soon as they get home.  Granted I realize that they could misconstrue this as some sort of arrogance on my part, or that maybe I dislike them in some way.  But really it’s that uncomfortable feeling I get when I’m in the room.  I feel like they’re judging me and everything I do or buy or say.  Conversations are awkward to say the least, at least from my point of view.

I know, so many problems could be resolved if I just talked to them.  Both of them sitting down with me and taking a few minutes to discuss how we feel about the situation.  But I know in the end that they don’t want me living here.  My brother has already mentioned me finding my own place eventually (not immediately of course, but maybe by the end of the year?), so the door has been opened for my departure.  Believe me, I’d be gone right now if I could afford it.

Ugh.  I just wanted to rant for a little bit.  I could go on for longer if I really wanted to, but then I even start to annoy myself, so I’ll stop now.

As for class, that actually went really well.  My classes are two and a half hours long, and only 25 minutes of it was actual lecturing with note-taking involved.  The rest of the usual intro/syllabus discussion/what to expect stuff you’d normally get.  This Monday class should be my easiest of the four, so that’s at least something to look forward to I guess.  The teacher (the head of the department I should say) seems really nice, and I’m good with math so it should be fairly painless.  Yay! If I can focus on that, my day will have ended well.

Until later,

-Liridon

Back to School Fun

Today is my first day of class as a graduate student.  Pause for dramatic effect.

I went to orientation last Thursday, and I felt a lot better about starting up.  The professors seemed really nice, my fellow incomers and I got along well, and I even have some possibilities to hang out with some people.  This semester I will try to be a different person than I was before.  I will be more sociable, more studious, and better prepared.  I will keep on top of my reading and try to fit in time to go to the social events offered by the department and fellow students.

Well, that’s what I thought before I looked at my syllabi last night for the first time.  Now I’m worried if I’ll even have enough time to do all the work they want me to do, much less work or make friends.  I’m freaking out just a little bit right now, just an hour and a half before class starts.  Will the professor expect us to know half the material already?  Will she expect to have our reading somehow done, even though the books weren’t available in the bookstore until today, and I didn’t have any money anyway?  We there be pop questions shot around the room, a shot aiming for the weakest of the herd in order to set an example?  Grad school is a whole new world.  So where’s my tour guide?

Ennui and Expectations

I know it’s been a while since my last post, but when your life consists of nothing more than sitting around trying not to spend money and waiting for school to start, there’s really not much to report on here.

School starts in nine days.  Until then I am broke and bored.  I have no job, no way to get my books for the semester, and no prospects for the future.  With less than $30 in my bank account, I’m doing all I can to scrimp, including minimizing how much I eat on a daily basis.  Oddly it reminds me of my summer in France, where to save money my friends and I would try to eat as little as possible.  I lost fifteen pounds that month, but ended up being terribly homesick.  That’s sort of how I feel now.

It’s not that I want to go back to Oklahoma, because I don’t.  Not yet at least.  I’m leaving the possibility of a return open, but not right now, not when I’m only a few days away from starting school, and hopefully starting on the road toward some accomplishments that merit an update to the family.  What I want right now is my own place.  Even though I’m in absolutely no place to be able to afford it, I can’t help but feel that if I had someplace to call my own, maybe this state would feel a little more permanent, a little more like a home.  I just don’t feel welcome at my brother and sister-in-law’s.

That sounds harsh.  I know they wouldn’t kick me out, especially if I had no job and no money, but at the same time I feel like our relationship would be better if we didn’t live together.  There’s a lot of stress between us, bubbling under the surface.  My sister-in-law almost never says anything to me unless I say something first.  I mean, I got a call on the house line a few days ago, and she didn’t even call me name.  She just knocked on the door and handed the phone to me wordlessly.  It’s just, every time I come back here, I only feel like I’m coming back to their place, not my place, my home.  If I spend money on something, even a few dollars for some fast food one afternoon, I feel like I have to sneak it in, like they’ll go crazy if they see I’m not saving every penny to pay them back for their generosity, to find my own place…  Before my current most dire situation, when I could still afford a little gas money, I would find myself staying out of the house for hours at a time, just wandering the malls or random stores when my sister-in-law was home.  I’d tell myself it was to stay out of her hair (since she works from home), but really I just feel awkward.

If I’m in the living room watching TV when she comes home during the day, I’m almost guaranteed to leave the room and shut myself up in my room withing a few minutes.  I feel like her eyes are poring into me as she enters, judging me for being so lazy, so inconsiderate.  Like she sees me and only thinks, “There he is, watching television again.  Why doesn’t he ever do anything useful?”  As for my brother, I just see disappointment in his eyes, like he’s a little ashamed of me being such a bum brother.  He’s annoyed that I can’t pay rent this month (though why I’m paying rent in the first place is a whole other gripe session — I certainly wouldn’t charge him rent in my place).  He’s already chided me (lightly, granted) about spending all my time on the phone and on the computer.  It’s true though.  I spend most of my time on the phone with my boyfriend (who is also jobless and about to start school soon), because at least he doesn’t judge me for my situation.

I know, I know, you’re all thinking, “Well why don’t you just go out there and get a job?  Pound the pavement and keep looking until something comes up?  Get out there everyday and make those employers pay attention to you?”  But it’s not that easy.  I can’t go for a regular full time job because my classes are 4:00 pm – 6:30 pm Monday through Thursday.  Most part-time jobs have varying schedules, and they want you to be very flexible with your schedules, and I can’t do that.  I really need something structured, with a fairly set schedule every week.  But aside from those excuses (and yes, I realize they are rather flimsy), is that disquieting voice in the back of my head that screams of the futility of it all.  I feel like I have no marketable skills to offer most companies, since I have no experience away from food service and a few months substitute teaching.  When it comes to finding a job I feel so devoid of hope that it seems impossible.  I’m afraid I’m slipping quickly into a depression out of which I don’t know if I’ll be able to pull myself.

My few consolations, my few bright spots are my boyfriend and school.  I’m scared shitless of school, but excited at the same time.  I’ve never taken any graduate level classes, and I know almost nothing about public administration, but that’s what I’m getting into so we’ll see how it goes.  I’m looking forward to meeting my fellow classmates, having something to do everyday (even if it is just homework), and testing my abilities a bit.  I’m of course looking forward to the job possibilities afterward, since the earning potential is quite nice for the degree, but that alone won’t sustain me until graduation in two years.  Really I’m just hoping that these classes will excite me in someway, will confirm this choice of mine in an area so far removed from my bachelor’s degree that inside I’m afraid I’ll be behind everyone else right from the start.  But I guess I’ll find out in ten days how things might go.  Ah, imagine the possibilities of that first week of class…

As for my boyfriend…  There are times that I wonder how long we’ll last, not because I don’t think he loves me anything, but because it’s sometimes hard for me to imagine marrying him, settling down with him and having kids.  He’s not at all what I pictured in a husband.  But at the same time he’s incredibly sweet to me, and very supportive of my education even though he has no idea what it is I’m planning on doing with my degree.  It sounds terribly conceited, too, but I love the way I look in his eyes.  He makes me feel so…  beautiful, funny, smart, nice… worthy.  He makes me feel worthy.  Of what I’m not quite sure, but I guess I’ll find out.

Thanks for listening, whoever you are out there.

-Liridon

Seven Months in Connecticut

So let’s see…  I moved away from Oklahoma and came to my new home on December 21, 2008.  For about a week after I got here, my parents were here for the holidays.  After that is when it really started to feel like it was for real.

I spent my first few weeks sleeping in the living room of my brother’s apartment, on their futon/couch.  I spent some time being a bit of slut, but I don’t think I went too far.  After getting used to the daily wake-up from their very large dog’s nose in my face, we finally made a trip to Ikea, where I came out with a bed and dresser in a nice medium-tone wood.  For $600 I think I should have gotten more bang for my buck, but it’s functional and pleasing to the eye, so I’m pretty happy with it.  Besides, my wonderful deep teal sheets are just awesome.

But anyway, on to more important things than modern Swedish furniture.  Eventually, I tried searching for a job, but given that I’ve never had to look for one, I was kind of lost with the whole process.  My sister-in-law had mentioned getting me a place at in insurance company where she used to work, but that didn’t really work out.  After much fruitless searching, I finally got a job as a substitute teacher of all things.

Now, I went into this job thinking I was going to be some glorified baby sitter, but I actually had a *lot* of fun.  I had some really great kids in my classes (and a couple of absolute monsters, but I try not to focus on them), and all the other teachers and secretaries and such were so nice.  There are eight elementary schools here, so I only had a few repeats, but still it was just so much fun.  I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so much in a classroom as I did with some of those kids, they were just so bright-eyed and so amazingly independent-thinking.  Ack, I could go on forever about how much fun it was…

That all started in mid-March, nearly three months after I moved up here.  Around the same time as I was starting my journey into the educational field, I actually met someone, too (surprise surprise!).  It happened in the weirdest of circumstances, too.  It was a Friday, and I had a date with someone I’d met online (as that is pretty much the only place I meet people).  We went out to a nice Italian place, had a good dinner and conversation, then went our separate ways.  I’m pretty sure he knew early on that I was not was he was looking for, and I picked up on the hints pretty well.

So I came home much sooner than I was hoping for, especially given that I had driven about half an hour to get to the restaurant and had just spent money on a dinner out when I didn’t yet have a job.  But I went about my evening as normal, then head to bed around midnight.  Well, an hour later I couldn’t sleep because I just wasn’t tired (and I was a little horny), so I got online and surfed this site to which I’m a member that is dedicated to gay men like me (i.e.-chubby guys).  I looked at the list of people who’ve viewed my profile, and came across a guy who was decently cute, though a little chubbier than I like, but he was online at the time so I decided to message him.  We ended up talking online for the next eight hours.  I went to bed just after 9 am.

To put things simply, we haven’t stopped talking since then.  I mean, last month alone I spent 11,000 minutes on the phone with him according to my wireless provider.  He lives in New Jersey about three hours from me, and we go back and forth on who goes where each month.  The only problem with us is that I just feel sometimes that we have nothing in common with each other.  I was originally attracted to him because of his somewhat crazy personality – his wild sense of humor, his terribly original way with words, and I hate to say it, but his almost insane devotion to me.  I like the fact that he’s so head over heels for me, but at the same time it scares me.  I know we’ve only been together for a few months (five months coming up mid-August), but still I can’t picture myself staying with him forever.  He’s mentioned marriage or kids before (in jest I hope), but I just can’t see myself settling down with him.  Our personalities, our sensabilities are just too different.  But at the same time I really cherish his friendship and can’t imagine not knowing him.

Now it’s August, and I’m sad to say more story seems to have ended in April roughly.  Everything just kept rolling along the same until school ended in late June, when I became jobless once again.  Since then I honestly only gave a half-hearted effort at looking for another job, thinking I could just go back to subbing while I’m in school.  Of course, now I have almost no money and three weeks until my loan money comes in for school, so I’m regretting my decision a bit, but I’ll survive.

On a final positive note, about two weeks ago my sister-in-law sent me a text suggesting I get in contact with someone at a staffing agency.  I got in contact, and in the last two weeks have had three one-day temp jobs.  A guy in the office is trying really hard to get me a job (wait for it!) the same insurance company at which I planned on finding employment when I first moved up here.  So I guess things might be going full circle.  What with that and the fact that I’ll be going to my first grad school class in 30 days (yikes!), I feel like things are finally starting up in my life here.  And it only took seven months.